There is a fundamental desire to enhance the physical appearance of foodstuffs for human consumption. Careful control of color, surface texture and physical arrangement of edible objects can enhance the appeal of the foodstuff. Often, artificial colors are added to foodstuffs so that they are more appealing to the eye. For example, a food grade, artificial color may be added to canned fruit to restore colors lost during processing. Sometimes, the surface texture of a food is altered so that the food appears more natural and less processed. Perhaps the most common examples of decorated foods are birthday cakes and holiday cookies. Often, a variety of flavored and/or colored frostings are applied to the surface of a cake or cookie to not only enhance the flavor of the product, but also to provide a means to improve the appearance of the food. Brightly colored frosting or gels may be applied to the surface of a cake or cookie by means of a special device designed for this purpose. Such devices may take the form of a cloth or flexible plastic tube to which is attached a nozzle. The frosting usually has the consistency of a creamy paste and may be made from ingredients including water, confectioner's sugar, shortening, flavoring, coloring and other ingredients The frosting is placed into the tube whereby manual application of pressure to the tube causes the frosting to be forced out of the nozzle. If the nozzle tip is carefully guided in close proximity to the surface of the food to be decorated, a continuous stream of frosting may be extruded from the nozzle whereby it is deposited onto the surface of the food. A skilled decorator can create artistic designs which might include crude text and graphics such as “Happy Birthday”. Often the food object to be decorated is first covered with a more or less even, relatively thin, layer of a base coating material which itself is usually a frosting of a single color and which serves to smooth out surface variations in the food being coated. The base coating may be chosen to contrast with the graphics which are applied later. It has been customary to decorate cookies for special occasions such as Christmas, Easter or Hanukkah. For families with young children this activity can be especially rewarding since the process of preparing the cookie dough, baking the cookies, and after cooling, decorating the cookies can include the entire family. Since the actual processes of preparing the dough and baking the cookies in an oven involve some skill and are associated with some hazards, this portion of the cookie-making experience is usually left to the parents or older family members. Decorating the cookies however, often involves the younger members of the household. This should not be surprising since one of the earliest activities many children learn is the act of drawing and “coloring.” However, coloring in a coloring book, for example is significantly easier than decorating a cookie with frosting. Often many colors of frosting need to be used to create the desired graphic effect. For example, Christmas cookies may be decorated in the following manner: After the baked cookies are cooled, a base coat of a single color frosting is applied more or less evenly over the entire upper face of the cookie. After this base coat has dried slightly, any number of other colors of frosting may be applied either by means of spreading with a knife or with one of the aforementioned applicator devices. Since the frostings usually contain sugar and shortening they can be very messy. Additionally, the frosting sets with time. That is, water evaporating from the frosting and water which is absorbed by the cookie from the applied frosting, causes the frosting to dry and stiffen, making it difficult to spread. Moreover, if several colors of frosting are to be used to decorate the cookies, an equal number of mixing utensils, containers and applicators may be required to mix, contain and dispense the colored frostings. Furthermore, since a substantial quantity of each frosting color must be available to decorate even a small quantity of cookies, the potential for spills and messes is significant, particularly when young children are involved. Still further, the non-Newtonian nature of confectionery frosting does not promote the ready application of decoration by novices which may yield a significant mess and waste of food product. Additionally, the use of a knife to spread frosting may be dangerous for a young child since the child could be injured by the knife. Further, most children do not possess the strength or coordination to use the decorating devices described previously.
A cookie painting kit is presently available in which users are instructed to paint cookies with brushes such as may be used with water colors. These kits typically offer a single bristle brush and several small jars of paint. Significant problems exist with this type of cookie painting system. First, the brushes offered in these kits tend to drip and create messes. Second, it is difficult for children to control the amount of paint which is retained on the brush after dipping into the paint and hence the amount of paint which is deposited onto the object intended to be painted. Third, the very nature of several open bottles of paint invites spills and stains not only on the child's clothing and skin but also on counters, floors and carpets. Additionally, open bottles of paint are subject to significant evaporation and even possible contamination from foreign objects and fingers. Lastly, anyone who has watched a child use watercolors has seen the all too common, ultimate result as the child transfers the brush from one color of paint to another, thereby eventually combining all the colors together. The usual outcome of this process is that all the paint bottles will now contain a more or less useless, brown paint, as they have become cross-contaminated. Generally at this point it is necessary to discard the bottles of paint and decoration is no longer possible.
Recently, some additional attempts have been made to provide for a means of decoration of food products in which the foods to be decorated are restricted to those having hard, dry surfaces. These products do not anticipate, nor are they designed to function on extremely soft substrates such as fresh frosting. The products are essentially identical and as such, suffer from the same shortcomings. The products are nothing more than standard, felt tipped markers in which the ink has been replaced with liquid food coloring. Because these markers use hard nibs, similar to those used to write on paper, cardboard and other dry, hard surfaces, they are entirely unsuitable for writing on frosted or other soft food items. Indeed, their performance even on many dry foods is poor, owing to the fact that these relatively inflexible nibs do not readily make intimate contact with the often uneven surface of the food item. Nearly all “felt” tipped markers produced today including the aforementioned products employ nibs which are made from fibers which are bonded either in a random fashion, such as felted polyester or wool or alternately, fibers which are essentially parallel to each other and which are bonded together using a chemical binder or adhesive. Typically, polyester, nylon or acrylic fibers are bound together to produce nibs for these conventional felt pens. The nibs may be produced by die cutting the nib stock into the desired shape which is typically used for 2-dimensional nibs such as those used for broad line markers, or alternately, the nib may be ground from rod stock. Many fine line markers employ nylon or polyester nibs which have been ground to a bullet shape, wedge or similar desirable shape. These markers have been optimized to write on hard, dry surfaces. Indeed, some of the nibs used in these pens are so compacted and hard that they are capable of piercing the skin and causing injury. Most importantly, however, markers using nibs of this type are incapable of satisfactorily writing on soft surfaces such as wet or moist frosting. Furthermore, as the moisture content present on the surface of the food item to be decorated is increased, markers of the conventional type become less effective as they are incapable of providing sufficient fluid flow to the surfaces.
Additionally, the relatively rigid nature of the nibs used in conventional markers such as those used in the specific products cited above, can cause great damage to soft surfaces such as frostings used to frost cookies and cakes, since the nib gouges the frosting during the attempted writing process. Still further, this gouging action tends to deposit significant quantities of frosting on the surface of the nib. These depositions quickly fill active fluid transfer sites on the surface of the nib and soon the nib is useless as a fluid transfer element.
While some attempt has been made to satisfy the need for a system which may be used to more easily decorate cookies, none of the available means offer the inherent simplicity, convenience, performance and ease of use as that of the instant invention. Clearly, the act of decorating cookies with frosting can be a trying experience for both child and adult. Since one of the purposes of the cookie (or cake) decorating experience is to have fun and create happy memories, something is missing from presently available food decorating means.
Thus, what is lacking in the art is a means whereby young children and others who are not skilled in the art of decorating foods with frosting may satisfactorily apply decorative indicia to cookies and other foods. If a means could be devised which permitted children to safely and easily decorate foods with a minimum of waste and mess, the beneficial process of decorating cookies as a family would truly be enhanced.
The following U.S. patents are of some reference to, but do not teach or suggest the invention as disclosed and claimed herein: U.S. Pat. No. 3,663,470 issued May 16, 1972 U.S. Pat. No. 3,737,398 issued Jun. 5, 1973U.S. Pat. No. 4,083,906 issued Apr. 11, 1978 U.S. Pat. No. 4,115,595 issued Sep. 19, 1978 U.S. Pat. No. 4,753,811 issued Jun. 28, 1988 U.S. Pat. No. 5,069,918 issued Dec. 3, 1991 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,554,658 issued Sep. 10, 1996.